I'm looking to coach my son for his 11+ entrance exams for the Wirral later this year and have been reading a lot of posts on this forum to work out the best strategy. Everyone's posts have been very helpful. Thank you! Especially Patricia & Mike.

He's already had a go at the TUTORS tests & practice demo's and has been through the IPS verbal reasoning & technique book and 3 practice papers.

I'm now thinking about the plan from here on and am a little concerned that there don't seem to be that many practice papers available. From my reckoning the following are the ones recommended:

I'm wondering firstly whether there are any others I've missed and also whether I should try and spread these out over the year so that he only does each one once or whether I should just use them up and then reuse them later.

Before any more tests I plan to go through the TUTOR's technique course and the IPS additional practice questions.

In between the tests I would be looking to use the TUTOR's interactive CD's, the IPS daily practice books (2) and looking to build up his vocabulary by letting him read aloud and by going through the vocab and compound word lists available here.

How does that sound? Is that too much or too little for the time left? Can anybody recommend any other books to use? Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

I do not think there is any need to reuse test papers. Too much VR training will result in overkill, leading to boredom which will encourage silly mistakes.

My post in the Wirral section may now be a tad out of date, the above link is the most up to date.I like to use tests in a certain order [as link] Starting with the 30 min papers, then using publishers that are close to the NFER format, in particular the answer sheet.

Will have to disagree. Nfer should always be left till last in order to practice in exactly the same format. Just need to ensure HIKNOS [IPS] or 16-18 [ The Tutors] is practiced along side and cross of the last 5 [Nfer have 85 instead of 80, use these for session practice.]

Agree, should not complete full papers at first. Keep to IPS, 30 minute tests, ensuring you have taught the types in that particular test. Could use IPS additional questions or The Tutors CD vol 1 for this practice. [although would recommend IPS in the beginning as the tests they will be attempting first wil be pen and paper, the techniques differ for the CD....do not want to confuse the child at start of their 11 plus venture]

I currently have the Nfer test papers on order (as well as the TUTOR's CD's!), but currently have 1 Nfer test sheet which I picked up in a sample pack a while back before I knew anything about the format of the exams here on the Wirral. This is 11D and has 7 questions each for 11 of the 15 types, 6 for another of the types and 2 type Z's.

Is there a standard format for the real Wirral tests? Depending on how much of a problem switching between the formats causes my son, I may try and produce something similar using questions from the other 21 type test sheets.

I also understand that the council gives out a test paper every year. Does this have exactly the same format as the real test? Is it possible to get hold of past issues?

The Wirral test will look the same as the shop bought NFER tests, except covering 21 types over 2 tests.

When changing from one publisher to the next, although still covering the 21, all my children take a dip in marks when using the publishers material for the first time. Hence I always leave NFER until last [exactly the same look]

I am unsure what familaiarisation, the Wirral give. In Bucks we have 5 short sessions covering the 21, followed by 3 practice tests.

I am going to move this thread to the Wirral section, where you may get some more advice...

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